JW Insider

I think Thinking thought you were talking about JTR, whearas in fact you were talking about Ann O' Maly 😂. Another classic example of how misunderstandings can happen. It stems from trying to be too diplomatic and not mentioning names. Sometimes it's good to be straightforward. One thing is sure, this thread is teaching quite a few lessons 😁
 

Yes I did Anna ..thank you for the clarification...and your right..this thread certainly is teaching us all something..and now I know what Tom was saying...but I guess this is a prime example of true brotherhood...we sort it out and fix it up...✌️

Yes. Looking back on the thread, I see how easy the mistake was to make. Were the misunderstanding valid, you would be absolutely right to rebuke me. I would have done the same. I have at times. 
People don’t have time to read all this in depth. They see a seeming injustice and they jump on it. I do not always speak plainly, and I do sometimes speak too much. 
I would not say that it is only the brotherhood where such things can be sorted out—with both ready to make amends, both ready to walk things back, both ready to apologize without worry about saving face. But I can think of many settings in which such a misunderstanding would not be readily sorted out, and instead would serve as a wedge to trigger further arguments. 
For all the greater world speaks of “coming together,” they tend not to do it very often.

I haven’t tried to rank them. If I did, I don’t think you would be in first place.
I do take it seriously. I just dial it back a notch or two.
If it is any consolation, I dial JWI’s stuff 2 notches or 3. You don’t think I buy all his stuff, do you? It is but food for thought—sort of like that verse that says you think you know it all after hearing the first witness, and then the other fellow comes along. I don’t know why he goes on and on the way he does—to me, all one need do is see how governments are treating our brothers and extrapolate from there—still, this site is a lab for me. I think it is a lab for you. I think it is a lab for him. As Voltaire said, the most sure way to be dull is to reveal everything—I don’t have to know where everyone is coming from.
I am on a Voltaire kick now. My Great Courses regimen has gone from Bart E to Henry VIII, and now it is on Voltaire. I listen to the CDs while walking the dog, who doesn’t listen himself, and they permit me to be a seed-picker, like they said of Paul at Acts 17:18, who picks up a seed here and poops it out there. I give the appearance of being smart, having something to say on everything, yet if one pressed you or JWI on China, both of you could expand indefinitely. If one presses me, a seed-picker, I change the subject to Gilligan’s Island. Seed-pickers frequently operate on the very edge of their knowledge, but nobody knows that but they. All that is lacking—as I note from watching Zoom commentators on TV—and which I will soon remedy—is to truck in a ton of books from the Goodwill, and make a podcast in which I can barely be seen for their sheer number. “Whoa! Look at all those books!” people will say, “he must be smart!” Mission accomplished. 
Voltaire is a name that I’ve long known of but relatively little about. Now I know a little more, and I find, so my surprise, that some of the things I do, he also did. My head, which was already dangerously large, as Cesar pointed out, 
now gets so big as to take up all the space in the Librarian’s library.
As to at least make a pretense of staying on topic, the daughter of one of my friends served as a missionary in China, along with her husband. Several years ago he told me that the Chinese secret police had infiltrated our congregations there in no time at all, but they also reported to their superiors that there was nothing to worry about, since our people had no interest whatsoever in changing politics. It is a story a little bit at odds with reports coming out of that land now. Maybe it was naïveté to begin with—some starry-eyed brother misreading reality—we do things like that. At any rate, based upon that input, I expressed similar naïveté in Tom Irregardless that I am almost embarrassed to own now. Still, no harm done, I think. It never hurts to give the other guy the benefit of the doubt, even if sometimes it is hurled back in your face.
I fall in between you and JWI as regards looking at signs, probably a bit closer to your way. Angels are desiring to peer into these things. It is not for me to tell them to straighten up and get back to work. But the friends can get pretty worked up over things that may turn out here-today, gone-tomorrow. Someone was all excited the other day about Trump brokering a new deal in the mid-east. Does that herald the cry of peace and security? they wondered what I thought. I don’t get worked up over such things. The media has so firmly suppressed the story, for fear of making Trump look good, that few here know much about it, anyway. I try to seek first the kingdom and his righteousness, follow counsel I have found trustworthy, and figure that matters of timing will unfold as they will.
 
 

Oh I sure do!!! Thank you, I never thought of looking there! Thank you!!!!

A fine new ally of @The Librarian. Who would have guessed? Like two peas in a pod, they are.

Whose Responsibility Is It? WT 97/8/15
"When elders learn about serious wrongdoing, they approach the individual involved to give needed help and correction. It is the elders’ responsibility to judge such ones inside the Christian congregation. Keeping a close watch on its spiritual condition, they assist and admonish anyone who is taking an unwise or wrong step.—1 Corinthians 5:12, 13; 2 Timothy 4:2; 1 Peter 5:1, 2.
But what if you are not an elder and you come to know about some serious wrongdoing on the part of another Christian? Guidelines are found in the Law that Jehovah gave to the nation of Israel. The Law stated that if a person was a witness to apostate acts, sedition, murder, or certain other serious crimes, it was his responsibility to report it and to testify to what he knew. Leviticus 5:1 states: “Now in case a soul sins in that he has heard public cursing and he is a witness or he has seen it or has come to know of it, if he does not report it, then he must answer for his error.”—Compare Deuteronomy 13:6-8; Esther 6:2; Proverbs 29:24".
Unfortunately, nowhere in this WT excerpt is there clear direction to whom this "serious wrongdoing" should be reported to.
One of the scriptures mentioned is Esther 6:2 where Mordecai reports a matter about two court officials plotting to kill the king, it is not clear to whom he reports the matter, but it was obviously to a secular authority. (logical, since the matter involved a secular king).
However, the other references from the Hebrew scriptures involve reporting to those under the mosaic law, and those from the Christian Greek scriptures involve fellow Christians in a congregation setting reporting “on the inside”.  So there doesn’t seem to be anything in the Bible about Christians reporting to those on the “outside”; i.e. the secular authorities.
When D. Ali, was questioned by the Australian Royal commission he was not quite sure what action he was supposed to take if he was told that a member of the congregation killed another member. (this is what @4Jah2me may have been referring to)
(transcript):
THE CHAIR:   Q.   If a different crime, to take the most  extreme, murder.  If you were told that a member of the congregation had killed someone else, would you report that  to the police? 
 A.   We would encourage the person to do that. 
 Q.   Would you do it yourself? 
 A.   No.  I would try very hard not to - not that I would  try very hard not to, but I would encourage the person continually to do that.  That's a decision they need to make. 
 Q.   What if the person wasn't prepared to go to the police, but they told you that they saw the killing  happen - what would you do? 
  A.   Am I being asked on the present day circumstances? 
  Q.   Yes. 
  A.   Yes.  I would take the action of ringing the branch and getting some legal advice on that. 
  Q.   You are living in Queensland, aren't you? 
  A.   Yes. 
 Q.   Do you have any knowledge of the law or legal obligations to report knowledge of crimes at all? 
  A.   Not - not really, no. 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Time and time again it has been remarked on by the courts and commissions such as the one above that nowhere in JW  publications was there any clear written direction on reporting crimes (which includes CSA) to secular authorities that could be referred to.*
It would also appear from Ali's remark ("Am I being asked on the present day circumstances"?) that in the past one would not seek direction from the branch to seek legal advice. (I am assuming that the legal department would be familiar with the "legal obligations" in Queensland to report crimes  and would have advised Ali to that effect). But I wonder what would happen "not" in present day circumstances......
* This as we know has now changed (thanks to the ARC) and the direction is clear for those who wish to report. Unless they are elders, since that is unfortunately contingent on mandatory reporting. But nevertheless, a massive improvement.

I know a number of people who have been convicted and later proved to be innocent...I don’t know what is going on here...and I’m not going to comment on this because I don’t have proof of anything....it seems he has yet to go to trial???....

No offense, but isn’t this a first for you? I think Anna raises a good point—if it is someone you know, and thus can see as more than one-dimensional, it makes a difference. Someone else, you posted headlines of being a “sex beast,” despite the touching offense (more serious than this case) being decades in the past and never repeated. “One would think that Epstein and Maxwell would have taught that source what a “sex beast” was,” I mentioned, and you disagreed. 
People are many-faceted. They are not just one thing. If it is judged that JTR has done wrong, there will be a price to pay. Hopefully thereafter he will get his life back on track. I wish him well in that regard. 
This is a ridiculous statement. All it means is that there is sometimes not enough evidence upon which to take action. Why don’t you suspend evidence altogether? If anyone is accused of anything, off to jail they go.
It is all irrelevant anyway. There is no reproach in reporting an abuser to police that he has not already brought upon himself—this was made absolutely clear in that WT of last year, studied by the whole congregation. Thus, regardless of what the congregation does, secular authorities can investigate and possibly punish with their own enhanced methods—examining hard drives, for instance.
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/02/the-reproach-of-child-sexual-abuse-falls-on-the-abu.html
The problem of a “culture of insularity” has been solved. If anyone thinks an abuser has pulled the wool over the eyes of elders, there is no stigma in going to outside authorities, as that study article makes clear.

Don't know if you will have time or inclination to read posts at present James. I have enjoyed some of our exchanges, especially when you have shared some technical insights, or glimpses of your anarchic sense of humor. And I must admit to a sense of achievement when getting your occasional "like" to a comment.
I am sorry if you have fallen on hard times. I hope you are able to get through things.
Please apply your own advice: "stay closer to Jehovah than I did". Start getting close to Jehovah.... now! This is a God who can retrieve people from the grave even. He will help you though the pits now...if you let him. Use Psalm 139 for meditation. Stay focussed James. 

Yeah, how blessed people must be with their leaders, capitalist or communist :))
The Trump administration proposed rule changes that would allow shower heads to boost water pressure, after Trump repeatedly complained that bathroom fixtures do not work to his liking.
The Department of Energy plan followed comments from Trump last month at a White House event on rolling back regulations. He said he believed water does not come out fast enough from fixtures.
“So what do you do? You just stand there longer or you take a shower longer? Because my hair – I don’t know about you, but it has to be perfect. Perfect,” he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/12/us-shower-pressure-trump-hair-water
 

That's how I read it too. I hadn't seen your post until after I posted and came back. I realize that I also said a court appearance was to be today. I should have said yesterday, but it hadn't made the newspaper ( gastongazette.com/news/courts ) yet, so I had a note to check again today.

There may very well be proof. But his trial was to start today.

Sometimes I just do what is expected of me  

It seems like he saw a storm coming.

I appreciated that Arauna was "addressing" me obliquely rather than through direct accusations. This is good manners on a forum, because the person will "know" he or she is being addressed, and can consider the merit of the accusation, but not feel threatened or feel a need to take it personally. You yourself have also been thoughtful and diplomatic in counseling me without direct confrontation. Of course, I know for a fact that some people seem to get even more irritated and defensive from this oblique manner than if they were accused directly. I'll take it either way.
And to your defense of me, thanks. That's my view. I've seen quite a bit of political "sign-watching" that ends up with the idea that, for example: "It kind of prepares us for what we can expect in future." (Not very oblique.) This is a valid opinion, but I notice the sheer magnitude of some of these expectations: like implementing a new world currency, or implementing and enforcing UN directives or "agenda" on a global scale which are slated for many years in the future. These types of things might very well happen, but thinking things like this must happen before the end can easily lull others into thinking that the real Global Government solution must be at least 5 to 10 years' off.
I was the first to bother, but only flippantly, to see if I could safely predict the following outcome:

Exactly!!! It was too easy. You probably don't even need names to know who was who.

Did he really say that? One time I called him out on how it is not much of a “last days” if it began in 33 and he said that as far as he was concerned, Armageddon might come in the next 5 minutes. I may be naive and inclined to cut people too much slack—those interminably long threads on chronology I either skim for the most part or even pass over entirely—but for me it is enough to say the present leadership is doing an overall good job and that leadership is essential in any project—and this he does repeatedly. People don’t have to come together on every particular, nice though that might be. As long he is not doing a Witness or a Rolf (the GB is nuts!—I am better) I can live with it.
If if eases Caser’s mind any (and even 4Jah), I have never seen such an in-depth discussion of international history, economics, and political maneuvering as here between JWI and yourself. Very very few brothers would have an interest or be capable of launching a similar thread. So it is not necessary for 4Jah or Cesar to say: “Well well well—it looks like JWs are taking an interest in “worldly politics.” Two of them are, and two are not very many, easily accommodated in the body of limbs that all work together.
Moreover, Cesar consistently upvotes one and downvotes the other—yet they both are equally political, so that if you moved these past few comments to a separate thread, he might not follow, since for some reason I cannot quite get my head around, there is much bad blood between he and a certain “ex-Bethelite.” As to comments making either a bad impression or, on the other hand, beIng innocuous, I think that could be said of both participants or neither. When I wrote ‘Dear Mr P—JWs Write Russia’ I determined NOT to present the northern king through the eyes of the southern, for if I did that, maybe some day the northern king would read it and get mad. For all I know, JWI’s trying to appreciate the viewpoint of the northern guy will make a better impression on him, and thus ease the suffering of our brothers in his domain, more so than does reaffirming the Western viewpoint of the “evil empire.” There is barely a drama anywhere in which the bad guys say, “We are the bad guys.” All of them are good guys. All of them have lofty goals. All of them have villainous implementations. All of them are subject to finger-pointing from the other side. Neutral though JWs strive to be, there was an occurrence or two of the phrase “iron curtain” in the 50s, and Emily Baran notes that it caused some grumbling among the Soviets, who didn’t view it as an iron curtain at all, but a “protective wall.”
Far more likely, I think, nobody reads this thread—I note that my invitation to respond in any way, with either an upvote or downvote, has attracted only two hits. Neither Putin nor Trump nor Xi is furiously hitting the upvote or downvote button like rats in a Skinner box, nor are any of the brothers. Not to worry should someone appear to be going off-script. I don’t think anyone is. JTR, for all his orneriness, had some good lines. One of them was: “that which is not expressly permitted is forbidden.” I rebuked him for it each time, because it is not so. But then along comes someone to suggest by what they would deny others that it is all so.
In my heart of hearts, I sometimes wish that brothers were as “well-rounded” with their heads as they are with their hands. It is not a big deal—“it is what it is” Trump recently said about something else, and how are you going to respond to that? “It isn’t what it is?” Get your head around how things “is”—I accept that. The greater world is the source of rebellion against God, misleading and being misled by you-know-who, so it is not the GB’s place to encourage ones to go out there for “balance.” They are concerned will preserving life. It is as it should be. They don’t encourage ones to take in-depth looks at how the kings speak for themselves. But that is not to say that they do not recognize that Witnesses have diverse interests.
 

Actually, it doesn't. I purposely started this topic in a non-Jehovah's Witnesses area of the forum. And no one has moved it to a JW area, even though several people kept bringing up JW beliefs here.
But I do agree that it should be clarified for everyone that this is just a discussion of politics. As far as I am concerned it's just another area where we can learn about history, geopolitics, and political biases. I never came at this topic from a religious perspective. (Just as when I post something about a singer or musician, I don't come at it from a religious perspective.) Things that catch my attention in this area often start from noticing the bias in the way things are worded in the news, or the way reports and statistics can be so easily skewed. I've probably already mentioned that my first full-time job started out from an internship after I took a course called "Statistics in the Social Sciences." The Computer Science degree required at least one course to be from that department. It turned into an internship with the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) which was highly political. That turned into a few years with A.D.Little where the statistics were used to promote policy. I even worked on the Trump account, when D.Trump was still more of a "player" and not so political yet. But, even here, it turned more and more political in pushing a landlord-supportive policies on NYC. I tried to get less political accounts, but it turned out that A.D.Little was geared to this kind of thing, so I left it to do IT and ROI projection work for a global financial company, and kept that job for nearly 30 years before retiring. But my interest is still piqued when I hear the common patterns of statistical skewing and the patterns of "spin" that the media is famous for.
So studying some historical politics and geopolitics is just something triggered by reading the news. Also, one of my sons went to school with several Chinese students, and is becoming more proficient in the Chinese language, and has several acquaintances from all parts of China with whom he writes and speaks in Chinese. (Before graduation, he had an offer to do physics research in China for a semester.) That, coronovirus, and my Chinese boss before my retirement, have all influenced my more recent interest in China.

Sorry about the formatting of that list of links. I started to write, got interrupted, and then just came back to the forum and just now saw the post for the first time in a couple days. I was able to fix it (I think).
As for my opinion, I'd say 'Yes, it is different.'
Your question and response are very political. However they got to this point, whether it was merely "contact" starting in 176 BCE or governance from the 1st century BCE, it has long been considered to be a part of China. Early Chinese dynastic empires took over by force, brutally I'm sure, long before there was a Muslim religion, even before there was a Christian religion. (The very interesting book you quote from says that Han China sent 30,000 troops in 176 AD to try to squash the uprising of Kashgar, a major city in the region.) 
Another politically loaded statement.
Here's an example to consider: Prisons in Texas are considered extra harsh, and the Texas legal system has put more people to death than any other state, and Texas is always among the top two states for school shootings. But we don't typically go back and remember how this was once Mexico, and how the USA took it by force, and how Texas was once an autonomous region. (From 1836-1845, Texas was a separate country from Mexico and the United States.) In other words, to explain certain issues in Texas, we don't say that the United States is still taking Texas by force, just because it once took Texas by force.
I noticed that you bolded these three sentences from the book you were quoting (link here). It intrigued me because it made no sense that China would be disturbed to find out that ancestors of Uyghurs were in this part of the world nearly two thousand years before China claimed any interest in it. (Evidence seems to show that Uyghurs themselves may not have come into the region until the 800's AD, but this does not mean that many didn't intermarry after that with those original inhabitants. And China had long admitted that these "ancestors" had Caucasoid features.) Besides, it was China that sent the mummies to the United States for an exhibit, along with other artifacts from the "Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China." China allowed the additional artifacts to remain on exhibit from February to June 2011, but had the mummies returned after less than two months. China said they were fragile and shouldn't be outside the country for too long.
National Geographic ( https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/intelligent-travel/2011/03/07/4000yearold_chinese_mummies_pr/ ) said that some suspected it might have been about "cultural sensitivities." There is no evidence that Chinese authorities were disturbed by what China was already exhibiting, and have continued to exhibit since 2011.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarim_mummies
The article in Wikipedia does give a source that explains how some Uyghur separatists were making some questionable claims about the mummies. (Claiming that Uyghurs as a whole, were directly descended from inhabitants of the region from 4000 years ago.) But the research of Western scholars actually disputed those Uyghur claims. The portion of the book you highlighted can be seen as a clever manipulation that juxtaposes the Uyghur claims, evidently false, and the findings of Western scholars, evidently true, which the Chinese authorities seemed to have no problem with:
"Chinese historian Ji Xianlin says China 'supported and admired' research by foreign experts into the mummies."
Without taking sides on who is right, you can at least see just how political those three sentences were, made even more so by the fact you highlighted them.

Even were there something objectionable about it, it only does leave a bad taste to you. There are only two notable participants here, maybe four altogether, not counting yourself. Do you think every other Witness in the world  is on the edge of their seat cheering, booing, approving, or disapproving?
In fact, let this be a test. Anyone reading this, respond in some way—upvote, downvote, laugh, frown—doesn’t matter—and I don’t want them all to be you. 
My guess is that people have far more to do with their time so that it is not necessary for you to scold ones who comment on things you find uninteresting.

Whatever perception that is will be solved when they learn to mind their own business, as we are all advised to do.
Just how do they do that? Are we to believe that the Wt expects people to eat Bible sandwiches 24/7? I think not. It is indulging an interest that is going on here, that is all, same as if brothers were working on a souped-up stock car, and trading shop-talk back and forth.
There are 8.6 million Witnesses in the world. Whatever two or three of them may being doing does not sink the ship.
Besides, for me, a hidden delight is to see that other yo-yo clucking his tongue at those showing an interest in “worldly politics.” I’ve known many brothers to take an interest in history. What are current events other than history in the making? Frankly, I have learned more here on the subject, in a condensed version, from the interplay of two with decidedly different experiences and viewpoints, than I have learned anywhere else.
An added benefit to me is that it validates the verse: “let God be found true, even if every man be found a liar.” There is not a position on earth that cannot produce reams of research to validate its view.

@JW Insider Comment removed, new topic started. 

May I assume that you have misunderstood the topic again, @4Jah2me?
There are many reasons to discuss religion when discussing the problems of socialist and communist countries. There may even be space to discuss personal or religious beliefs about how China/Russia/etc, might fit into Bible prophecy, because this has been one of the ways that religious believers tie China and Russia into their worldview. Also, China and Russia have been notorious for their persecution and restrictions placed on several different Christian-oriented religions (JWs and others).
But just because you happen to know that @Arauna, for example, is one of Jehovah's Witnesses, it actually is "trolling" behavior to follow her comments, often only to pick out specific words as a means to insult her religion.
In case you still question what "trolling" means in the context of posting, I just googled it:
troll2 noun:   a person who makes a deliberately offensive or provocative online post. a deliberately offensive or provocative online post. verb:   make a deliberately offensive or provocative online post with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry response from them. If you wish to comment about JWs or the GB, comment about what they have said about China, or experiences of JWs in China or Russia. If your goal is merely to find what you consider hypocritical statements, then make a topic about that. Or make a topic about all the clever ways you have found to take posts on various topics and used the information to insult Jehovah's Witnesses.

Here it is: Bart Ehrman’s Heaven and Hell—Any JW Could Have Written This
Okay, start by walking it back. They couldn’t. Not all of it. But the gist of it they could, and that is a claim that few others can make.
When I read Bart’s contribution to Time Magazine, it was as though I was reading the Watchtower! The occasion is the release of his latest book Heaven and Hell, (he has over 30!) in which he speaks in absolute agreement about topics that Jehovah’s Witnesses know well—and have known well for over 100 years—topics such as soul, psyche, Sheol, Gehenna, notions of heaven, and notions of hell. 
A very few of his paragraphs wouldn’t fit—mostly the ones that are muddled. But for the most part, the content of his book is very very familiar. It is so familiar that I even begin to float the notion that he keeps up with Watchtower publications—the writers there are far and away the most vocal proponents of the ideas he has picked up on—some might say the only proponents.
Not that he would accept the Watchtower as a source in itself, I don’t think. But what I can easily picture is him keeping abreast of their writing and the explanations that only they have, then tracing it back to original sources, whereupon he verifies it all and presents it as though his own research—which it would be, minus the credit for who put him on the right track in the first place. 
Okay, okay—maybe he’s not ripping off their work. Probably he is not. He is a respected scholar, after all. But in that case, the scholarship of the Watchtower must be elevated, for it is the same—and their critics generally assume that they have none.
Take a few excerpts of Erhman’s article:
Neither Jesus, nor the Hebrew Bible he interpreted, endorsed the view that departed souls go to paradise or everlasting pain.
Unlike most Greeks, ancient Jews traditionally did not believe the soul could exist at all apart from the body. On the contrary, for them, the soul was more like the “breath.” The first human God created, Adam, began as a lump of clay; then God “breathed” life into him (Genesis 2: 7). Adam remained alive until he stopped breathing. Then it was dust to dust, ashes to ashes... When we stop breathing, our breath doesn’t go anywhere. It just stops. So too the “soul” doesn’t continue on outside the body, subject to postmortem pleasure or pain. It doesn’t exist any longer.
The Hebrew Bible itself assumes that the dead are simply dead—that their body lies in the grave, and there is no consciousness, ever again. It is true that some poetic authors, for example in the Psalms, use the mysterious term “Sheol” to describe a person’s new location. But in most instances Sheol is simply a synonym for “tomb” or “grave.” It’s not a place where someone actually goes.
and later: 
Most people today would be surprised to learn that Jesus believed in a bodily eternal life here on earth, instead of eternal bliss for souls, but even more that he did not believe in hell as a place of eternal torment.
In traditional English versions, he does occasionally seem to speak of “Hell” – for example, in his warnings in the Sermon on the Mount: anyone who calls another a fool, or who allows their right eye or hand to sin, will be cast into “hell” (Matthew 5:22, 29-30). But these passages are not actually referring to “hell.” The word Jesus uses is “Gehenna.” The term does not refer to a place of eternal torment but to a notorious valley just outside the walls of Jerusalem, believed by many Jews at the time to be the most unholy, god-forsaken place on earth. It was where, according to the Old Testament, ancient Israelites practiced child sacrifice to foreign gods. The God of Israel had condemned and forsaken the place.
In the ancient world (whether Greek, Roman, or Jewish), the worst punishment a person could experience after death was to be denied a decent burial. Jesus developed this view into a repugnant scenario: corpses of those excluded from the kingdom would be unceremoniously tossed into the most desecrated dumping ground on the planet. Jesus did not say souls would be tortured there. They simply would no longer exist.”
Anyone who knows anything about Jehovah’s Witnesses knows that these are exactly their views. Is Bart just taking our stuff? No—it can’t be—I wouldn’t make the charge. But I can be forgiven the suspicion. Do a search on any of these terms at JW.org and you will find what he now says. Maybe it is simply basic research that any decent scholar could uncover, as Bart has, but in that case it is all the more damning for the world of churches. Not only do they make no mention of these things, but they consider most of them heresies.
Witnesses were there before he was born. He can’t not know it. When I search his own blog (which I am jealous of—he has a good gig going, and I like the platform), virtually nothing about Jehovah’s Witnesses comes up, apart from a post about the name Jehovah itself, in which he misses entirely the import of God having a name rather than a title, to focus on its Latin letters, and thus declaring it false. I found nothing else beyond a few brief, usually derogatory comments from contributors, to which he typically would answer that he is not very familiar with it.
Nobody espouses on these ‘afterlife’ views of his like Jehovah’s Witnesses, and apart from them almost nobody else does—and yet he never mentions Witnesses. This seems parallel to when Ronald Sider suggests four reforms that he thinks would solve the problems of the evangelical church (that they don’t practice what the preach), stating that nobody implements these reforms, and ignoring completely that Jehovah’s Witnesses do, and that yes, they do go a long way in solving the problem he has identified. 
“Most people today would be surprised to learn that Jesus believed in a bodily eternal life here on earth, instead of eternal bliss for souls, but even more that he did not believe in hell as a place of eternal torment.” says Bart.
We’ve taught this for 100 years and, yes, they are surprised. Why? Because such things were never taught at church. Instead, the near-universal teaching of church Christianity is that when you die, you go to heaven if you were good, and hell if you were bad. That is what just about everyone of church background thought before becoming a Witness. I have said before that, given the universality of the heaven/hell teaching, you would almost expect it to be on every other page of the Bible. Instead, apart from a handful of verses that can be tortured for that meaning, it is never encountered. It is among the reasons that, on becoming Witnesses, people are wont to say that they have “come into the truth.” The explanations are so simple. The Bible comes together and makes sense. After all, if God wanted persons in heaven, why didn’t he put them there in the first place?
“There are over two billion Christians in the world, the vast majority of whom believe in heaven and hell. You die and your soul goes either to everlasting bliss or torment (or purgatory en route). ...The vast majority of these people naturally assume this is what Jesus himself taught.” states Bart.
Yes, of course they would assume it. Most church teachings—people simply assume that they are to be found in the Bible. For many, the you-know-what hits the fan when they discover that they are not. From this arises the saying among Witnesses, not heard so often as it once was, that new ones ought to be locked up for six months until their zeal is tempered with common sense.
There was a pesty fellow who used to challenge me a lot on trinity and other church teachings. One day he sent me a video of “4 famous church leaders“ hubbubing in conference, in which he said they acknowledged that everlasting life on earth was the actual Bible hope—it wasn’t just JWs who taught it. I couldn’t get far into it—it was just too smarmy. I told him I’d take his word for it. Though these leaders knew and discussed the actual role of the earth as our permanent home, the problem was “Bible illiteracy” among the masses, he said. 
If the problem is Bible literacy among the masses, I replied, why don’t they fix it? Isn’t that their job as leaders? Ones taking the lead in our faith manage to keep people on the same page.
So what to do with Bart? Is he taking our stuff? Nah—I guess not. If the four famous church leaders knew things that they hadn’t bothered to tell the masses, maybe it is out there for Bart to find as well. I have not been especially kind to him in previous posts, and maybe I should walk some of it back. He presents as though an agnostic/atheist in his Great Courses lecture series and annoys me on that account. I’ve written about ten posts, none of them kind, with several more in the hopper that I may or may not ever get to, and I may have to rethink some of them. Fortunately, I have already made it clear that nothing is personal—it is ideas that you squabble with, not the persons who have them, who are more-or-less interchangeable placeholders.
But he had better be careful. He joins the ranks of people like Bruce Speiss, Jason Beduhn, Joel Engardio, and Gunnar Samuelson, who write something that squares with JW beliefs, and spend the rest of their days on earth denying that they are one of them. Occasionally, they must even issue statements to the effect of  “Look, I'm not one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I don’t agree with Jehovah’s Witnesses. I don’t even like Jehovah’s Witnesses.” But it’s too late! The damage has been done! Sigh....what's a scholar to do? Agreeing with Jehovah’s Witnesses is detrimental to one’s career, and yet Jehovah’s Witnesses are right on so many things. And the things they're right about, they have been saying for a long time, so it’s embarrassing for cutting edge scholars to endorse what the JWs, for the most part unscholarly and ordinary folk, have long maintained.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) he veers aside frequently enough so people may not make the mistake. Such as:
“Some thinkers came up with a solution [shortly before Christ] that explained how God would bring about justice... This new idea maintained that there are evil forces in the world aligned against God and determined to afflict his people. Even though God is the ultimate ruler over all, he has temporarily relinquished control of this world for some mysterious reason. But the forces of evil have little time left. God is soon to intervene in earthly affairs to destroy everything and everyone that opposes him and to bring in a new realm for his true followers, a Kingdom of God, a paradise on earth. Most important, this new earthly kingdom will come not only to those alive at the time, but also to those who have died. Indeed, God will breathe life back into the dead, restoring them to an earthly existence.” (italics and bolded text mine. “Some mysterious reason”—he doesn’t know that?! after nailing it on so many other points!)
Not to mention his muddled:
“And God will bring all the dead back to life, not just the righteous. The multitude who had been opposed to God will also be raised, but for a different reason: to see the errors of their ways and be judged. Once they are shocked and filled with regret – but too late — they will permanently be wiped out of existence.” Sigh...it is as Anthony Morris said: “Just stick with publications of the slave, and you will be alright.” The moment he goes “off-script” he comes up with some half-baked “nah nah—told ya so!” diatribe from his born-again days that he grew out of (and they do not look upon him kindly for that reason).
One of my own chums pulled me back from the edge, just as I was about to go apoplectic and accuse Bart of plagiarizing us: “I don't think all of this is that new to Bart Ehrman. I caught some of this on his site. But I had never noticed before, that he now sees Jesus' actual words in pretty much the same sense that JWs believe,” he said. He had spent the few dollars to subscribe to the Bart site for a month, so as to ask a question or two. I read some of the Bart site, and he makes a better impression on me there than he does as Great Courses lecturer.
My chum said of our own work and of Bart’s: “I think that the Watchtower (Bible Students and JWs) have done an enormous service to the religious world by "putting out the fires of hell." It has taken the last 100 years, but I believe that there are a lot of churches where the Watchtower has provided a strong influence so that those churches and their teachers are not so likely to emphasize the teachings that make God seem like a monster. For good or bad Ehrman does have influence, especially on new students, and this last book might even help a bit in opening up some opportunities for our own work.”
Odd “allies” we may yet become.
...
It may be that one should take a new look at Time Magazine, as well. I subscribed to Time a little over two years ago, enticed by an absurdly low rate, with the thought I would cancel when the auto-renewal hit. When it hit, I did cancel, because the magazine—once a powerhouse, but now upstaged amidst the digital revolution, seemed no more than “same-old same-old” to me. Nothing wrong with it, but neither was it unique. My curiosity had been peaked by the low subscription rate. 
I now think super low rate was because a sale was pending, and they wanted to enhance whatever subscriber base they still had to pretty it up for purchase. Mark Benoif has bought it, he who is the Salesforce company founder—a guy worth 6 billion, I am told. He joins Jeff Bezos who bought the Washington Post, and Lourene Jobs (widow of Steve) who bought a majority stake in Atlantic.
Not sure how the new owners will change the brands they bought, however I can’t picture this Ehrman piece in the old Time (or in fact, anywhere). This may be evidence that it is no longer “same-old same old.” In an effort to compete, these outlets may be going places that they have never gone before.

A favorite line, when trying to distance ourselves from the 24-hour days-of-creation people, has been to point out that “we are not the religionists that put dinosaurs on the Kentucky ark.”
I heard via social media report that the Kentucky ark was suffering a devastating decline in tickets sales. I responded that this was a problem in the original ark, too—tickets sold out after just eight were purchased.
My wife and I once stayed at a Best Western in Cincinnati, a last minute change of destination because our original one was beset by hurricane. The next morning in the breakfast room, nearly everyone was headed out for a day at the Ark, most of them with kids in tow. We did not go, of course, but saw some other sights of the city. Animal-wise, we went to the Cincinnati zoo, where I learned that was the zoo at which a boy fell into the gorilla enclosure, prompting the gorilla to be shot to death. They had a little memorial to Harambe there. I am not sure why, but a top ten list for ‘best zoos in the country’ includes three from Ohio—Cincinnati, Columbus, and Toledo.